


The Odyssey

by malchanceux



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I have this thing where I'm obsessed with Malcolm Merlyn, So I apparently am stickin' him places he doesn't belong, episode coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-07
Updated: 2013-12-07
Packaged: 2018-01-03 21:26:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1073232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malchanceux/pseuds/malchanceux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coda for season 1, episode 14.</p><p>When the Vigilante's confrontation with Moira Queen goes south, Oliver doesn't quite make it to Felicity's car.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Odyssey

            “Moira Queen,” he stands strong and confident in a way he can’t muster inside himself. To think the mission to honor his father would have his _mother_ in his crosshairs, “You have failed this city.”

            Oliver delivers his lines flawlessly, apathetically, just as he would have with any other crook. It hurts, like a fresh burn in cold air, to think his own flesh and blood could be worthy of his arrows.

            He trusts Diggle’s judgment.

            He has to put the mission first, no matter what.

            Only he doesn’t. And it costs him.

            When Moira pleads for her life while helplessly clutching at a family photo, Oliver gives. He lowers his bow and concedes that perhaps he can handle this mission a little differently, less violently. After all, it was his mother, not some one-percenter thug with a loose trigger finger. What harm could she cause?

            When Moira pulls a gun, Oliver’s body freezes. The image of his loving mother holding a weapon aimed to kill just does not register.

            Four rounds whiz by him without so much a graze, but the fifth hits his shoulder and Oliver can just tell that the bullet has nicked something _important._ His mind finally catches up with his body and he hits the floor _(on his bad shoulder)_ , before he’s crawling out the window he crashed through not minutes ago.

            Security will be on his tail soon, and that thought alone is all that’s keeping him going. He grapples down the side of Queens Consolidated but makes a detour to the car garage. He’d kept tabs on a certain IT associate. He knew Ms. Smoak's car and how long she worked. Any minute Felicity would make her way down from the upper floors. Oliver wasn’t sure if he could trust her—but he didn’t have much of a choice.

             He doesn’t make it to her car.

            Oliver stumbles into a pillar and slides down it before crashing into a heap on the hard concrete. Blood smears down with him, leaves a warm red trail behind. With shaky hands, Oliver aims his arrows and takes out the only two security cameras that could cause him any trouble. He thinks if he just stops and takes a quick breather, maybe he could get up and try for Smoak's car again _(it’s a whole other floor down)_. He doesn’t have much of a choice.

            The world starts to spin and Oliver’s breathing only grows shallower as he sits in agony. He is in the middle of enemy territory though, and adrenalin and five years fighting for survival have him picking himself up off the floor and stumbling towards what could be salvation. He keeps a white knuckled grip on his bow with his bad arm, clutches at the bleeding wound with the other—trying to stem the blood. He knows from experience that without _some_ sort of medical attention given, the wound will only get worse.

            Oliver’s heart is pounding in his ears; he doesn’t hear the quiet hum of an expensive car coming around the ramp until it breaks with the suddenness of a shocked driver. He looks up—eyes struggling to focus properly—and gets the vaguest impression of a black Bentley before he crashes to his knees.

            “Fuck,” he mutters and tries to steady himself. He’s lost too much blood.

            The car's door opens and light foot falls carry an unknown threat slowly closer. Oliver scoots back until his back hits the bumper of a car. He aims his bow and draws the string taut with an arrow. Somewhere in the back of his mind a small voice screams out in protest _(civilian, innocent)_ , but another voice screams louder for survival _(casualty of war, necessary)_ , and wins.

            It’s a man. A man in a suit. An expensive suit. Oliver’s eyes travel up well tailored slacks, over a pressed shirt, and half Windsor knotted silk tie. He blinks back surprise when his gaze roams over a familiar clean jawline and precariously gelled hair.

            “Malcolm?” he says without thinking. It sounds like he’s speaking from underwater to his own ears—distant and garbled. His microphone is still on, his voice masked by fake, deep baritones.

            The elder Merlyn’s hands are up in a placating surrender as he slowly closes in on the vigilante, but hearing his name spoken in confused familiarity makes him pause. Oliver misses the calculating gaze the man gives him.

            “Turn around and get back in your car,” Oliver says as firmly as he can manage. He thinks the arrow aimed at his chest should be enough motivation to get Malcolm to _obey,_ so he’s unpleasantly surprised when the man continues to inch closer.

            “You’re bleeding,” Malcolm says with no hint of emotion that Oliver can catch.

            “I said, get _back in your car.”_

            Malcolm stops again at Oliver’s growl. The bow is still aimed at Merlyn but Oliver’s grip is growing weaker—shakier. It is only his years of battle field training that has him catching the very moment the arrow slips from his grip. At the last second, he tips his bow. The arrow flies along the arrow rest like a stone skipping water, and takes out one of the hanging lights instead of the man in front of him.

            The movement sends ripples of pain through his arm and shoulder. Oliver groans and leans back more fully onto the car behind him. He drops his bow _(too weak to keep a steady shot)_ and pulls out his boot knife instead. It’ll have to do.

            “I know you,” it’s a statement spoken with surety and shaken curiosity as Malcolm approaches again. He'd jumped back, surprised when Oliver's arrow had launched but he seems to have recovered his wits. Oliver doesn’t want to hurt the elder Merlyn—they go as far back as he and Tommy, the man was like a father to him—but panic and the _need_ to survive will win over if they must, just as they have for five long years on Lain Yu.

            Malcolm draws only nearer and Oliver fixes his grip on the knife. He’ll aim to slow down, not kill. He repeats that in his head like a mantra. There’s no guarantee it’ll work.

            With as much speed as he can muster, Oliver strikes out for the legs when Malcolm is close enough. In the blink of an eye, his wrist is pinned to the bumper next to his head by an expensive leather shoe—his knife skittering away as the muscles in his hands are forced to let go.

            “Stop—” he says weakly as a hand grasps his hood and pulls it back. Silence falls as realization breaks across Malcolm’s face—less shock as his theory is confirmed. He drops his foot—and Oliver’s arm—and takes a step back.

            “No,” the man whispers a denial and Oliver’s eyes begin to droop shut. Adrenaline has gotten him far, but energy is leaving him faster than his blood.

            Oliver fights for consciousness, leans his head back so he can look at Merlyn fully in the eyes. What should he do—beg the man not to take him to the police? They had history, but the vigilante was a wanted criminal: a killer. And he had just attacked his own mother. Malcolm must be here to see her—would he know already? And if not, what would he do when he realizes what Oliver’s just done?

            He supposes in his current situation, he has little to lose and a short time span to do what needed to be done.

            “I need—” he starts, his voice still masked. He thinks better of it, reaches up to switch the garbler off before continuing, “Under the Verdant—the night club. The pass code is 115646.”

            He doesn’t say anything else, just looks up at Malcolm with a blank face because that’s all that he can do. He won’t show his desperation or his pain because both are blatantly apparent. Malcolm will either help him, or he won’t.

            He doesn’t know what he expects.

            Malcolm kneeling down beside him to help him up and into the back of his car isn’t it.


End file.
